Aysha Tanya

Freelance writer

Aysha Tanya is a freelance writer and photographer. Her work has been featured in Food52, Lucky Peach, Vogue India amongst others. She hosts the blog The Malabar Tea Room with her mother, Kathija, where they chronicle the joys (and struggles!) of cooking in a small- town kitchen.

If you're overwhelmed by the sheer variety of pots, pans and kitchen tools that a simple Google search reveals, this list is for you. Recently, I noticed that I reach for the same few pans and tools over and over again. I am here to tell you that it is possible to cook versatile meals with a few well thought-out utensils and tools.

There are so many things that are worth celebrating fathers for -- trips to the VHS lending library to rent out <em>Jurassic Park</em> (for the twelfth time), lighting sparkler after sparkler for the kids on Eid, being ecstatic even though you only placed fifth in the school race. Those little things that are actually big things. For Fathers' Day this week, we spoke to five stay-at-home dads about one such big little thing that we believe is especially worth celebrating -- cooking for their children. Here's what we uncovered.

We caught up with some of our favourite mommy-cooks to put this list together. We can all agree that all mums have the uncanny ability to fix almost anything - from high-school science projects to broken hearts and failed chicken curries. So we asked Mum to share one ingredient from her cuisine, with the power to transform a dish, either in flavour or nutritional value. And what we have here is absolute gold!